OK, so you’ve looked at our website or been invited by a friend and you are thinking about coming to our worship service and you might be wondering what to expect.

First thing you should probably know is that we welcome everyone and by everyone we really mean everyone!  We celebrate the diversity of God’s creation and affirm that all people are created by God and understand the word ‘ALL’ to mean all: rich, poor, conservative, progressive, white, black, Hispanic, Asian, married, single, divorced, widowed, gay, straight etc.

 

Well, if you have a church background then you probably have an idea. There will be some singing, some praying, a sermon, an offering, and communion. Worship begins at 10:15 and ends around 11:30.

If you don’t have a church background the same things will happen, i.e. singing, praying, etc. but let me try to prepare you for what will happen before any of that.

You will be welcomed by one of our friendly greeters and given the Church bulletin which is basically a handout that tells you the order of events in our service and the names of people doing various things and announcements that talk about various activities the Church is involved with.

Some people have “regular spots” where they like to sit but we are always happy to give up our seats for a new visitor so take a seat wherever you like and relax!

We try to start our worship service at 10:15 and end by 11:30, we begin by inviting everyone to get up and greet each other, at least those close by. Some of our people are very enthusiastic about it, others are shy, but all of them are friendly.

The congregation will then sing our “Welcome Song.” We sing it every Sunday even if we don’t have any visitors. The words will be projected on the screen up front and it’s easy to sing and chances are pretty good you’re going to be very familiar with the tune.

After the ‘Welcome Song’ we will sing hymn of praise be followed by a person leading us in a short prayer followed by the Lord’s Prayer. We all pray the Lord’s prayer and again, the words are on the screen.

Many people feel that their favorite part of the service is when the children are invited to come forward for what is called the Object Lesson. This is a time will share a very short message geared to children.  After this, the children will be invited to go to their own worship service.

After the children leave we have a time of prayer. This prayer is intended to lift up friends and family members who are sick as well as to pray for our community, our nation, and the world.

We will then listen to a passage of Scripture which is also shown on the screen. This will be the passage that the message is based on which will come later in the service.

After the Scripture, the choir will sing.  We have a great choir and are blessed with two wonderful musicians, Howard Lemon on keyboard and Rick Rossano on guitar.

After the choir, comes the message usually by Pastor Bruce.  which is we hope that it is inspiring and insightful. You can get a feel for our Sermons before you even visit us by listening to a few of our Sermons on the Services and Ministries tab.

After the message, the congregation will be asked to respond

Has someone in your life shared the attitude of  Christ with you, I offer you to come forward now to offer words of encouragement to us all. 
Or

You are ready to respond and declare publicly “Yes Jesus I believe in you and want to adopt your attitude of service”, come forward now

    Or
You are ready to say, I want to help grow our neighborhood and join in transferring your involvement into this community. Come forward now. 

Then we will stand and sing a song, you will see some men and women come forward to the altar and you will see the pastor and an Elder gather behind the table. The lay people behind the table are “Elder,” spiritual leaders in the church and they will offer prayers. The lay people on either side of the table are called “Deacons” and they will be ‘serving’ by bringing offering trays to the congregation and then later communion.

The offering is an opportunity for those who want to give to do so, some people give cash, others write checks or give online. When the tray is passed to you, you are invited to give a gift or to simply pass it to the person sitting next to you, or if there isn’t anyone next to you, pass it back. Not everybody gives every Sunday, so there really is no pressure to give.

After the offering, has been collected, the ‘Deacons’ will come back to the altar with the offering trays, hand it to the Elders who will hand it to the minister. The Elder will then offer a prayer.

After the prayer, everyone will sit down and the minister will offer a short meditation about communion. In our congregation, communion is open to all who believe and have accepted Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior. The bread represents his body and the cup (we use grape juice) represents his blood. We believe that Jesus died on the cross for our sins and was resurrected for US!

ALL people of God are invited to participate. We will partake together after elements have been passed.

After communion, we are tasked with Ministry in Action. A fancy way to say we share "what is coming up in the church"

After our worship service, we have a time of Fellowship and refreshment and everyone is invited to join us. Even though you might not know anyone yet, please come on into the fellowship hall. So many of our members would love to meet you and we have all kinds…very serious members, not so serious members and very silly members but the one thing we all have in common is we are all humans seeking to walk along side each other.

That’s pretty much what you can expect on your first visit and I sincerely hope that you will visit with us soon!

Hopefully, you will feel the loving, warmth and welcoming spirit of our congregation and come back to be with us many times. It all really comes down to this… We are all here for the same reason, to Worship our God.

We are delighted that you are here!

Pressing On in God's Love

First Christian Church